Last Kiss
by Melissa Rose
Summary: A kiss goes too far and Remy and Rogue's relationship suffer the consequences
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: This is my very first attempt at X-Men fan fic, so any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. I was also born and raised in Westchester, NY (small world) so New Rochelle and most of the places I describe here are real. Anyway, I hope that whoever reads this enjoys:)**  
  
  
  
"Ah gotta tell ya sugah, this ain' anymore easy for me than for you," Rogue said with the faintest smile, her eyes filling up with hot tears. She picked up his hand in her own gloved one, lacing her fingers with Remy's. "Ah can' be around the people ah love anymore without hurtin' them, so when ya wake up ah'll be gone."  
  
She leaned forward, stretching out on the bed next to him, laying her cheek on his chest, listening to the faint thump, thump of his heart for a moment, the material of his uniform soft against her skin. Rogue reached a hand over his stomach, hugging tight, not wanting to let go, but knowing that with every second that passed she would have to come to terms with the duffel bag that sat in the open doorway.  
  
The tears freed themselves then, spilling over her cheeks, and she was unable to stop them. Instead, Rogue let them splash down, soaking her hair with wetness. "Ah'm so sorry," she whispered before struggling into a sitting position, turning her head away so that she wouldn't have to look at his still form.  
  
Standing, Rogue walked stiffly to the door, scooping up her bag, stuffed with some clothing, hesitating, illuminated in the hallway light. She blinked hard, fighting the expression that her face wanted to crumple into.  
  
Then she turned, walking swiftly from the dark room.  
  
  
******************************************************  
  
It was difficult to open his eyes and the feeling that he was falling back into a deep abyss didn't lessen as he struggled. But there was something that he needed to wake up for.   
  
If only he could remember what it was.  
  
His eyes snapped open. "Rogue."  
  
Gambit forced himself into a sitting position, wiggling his toes, trying to get rid of the pins and needles feeling that settled there and was beginning to travel up his legs. His head, his thoughts, were fuzzy, his mouth cottony, and Remy began to wonder just how long he had been knocked out.  
  
"Dis ain't good, Roguey," he mumbled, a sick feeling gnawing at the pit of his stomach. He supposed this was what he got for trying to push Rogue further than they both knew she was capable of going, but he'd be damned if he was going to throw up on top of everything else.  
  
Using the nightstand for support, Remy slowly got to his feet, his knees shaking warningly. "I'd be better off lyin' down." He shut his red and black eyes for a moment against the splitting pain that shot through his forehead and swallowed hard. "Too bad, I don' play da game u'less I can take t'consequences."  
  
Getting to the door was a struggle and one that would have left him blushing in embarrassment if anyone had seen him. Smooth, suave Remy LeBeau was stumbling around like a drunken idiot.  
  
He met a flustered Jubilee in the hallway, her black hair spiked up, her brown eyes a little guarded. "What are you doing up?" she demanded, her voice high and loud enough to bring everyone running.  
  
"Sh, petite, please," Gambit said, holding one arm against the wall. "I jus' tryin' t'find Rogue. Have you seen her?"  
  
Jubilee's arms, that had been crossed over her chest, fell limply to her sides as her eyes darted away to study a small, watercolor painting on the wall.  
  
"Jubilee?"  
  
"It's been a long day for everyone," was all she said.   
  
"Jubilee," Remy said, this time a little firmer.  
  
"Noone's really been having a good time of it..."  
  
The feeling in his stomach turned sudden and sharp, like he had been kicked hard in the gut. "*Jubilee.*"  
  
Jubilee shoved her hands into the pockets of her yellow coat, chewing at her lower lip. "You were knocked out for a while."  
  
"Where's Rogue," Gambit demanded, his voice growing louder and more impatient. The shaky feeling in his knees was back, stronger than it had been originally, and his red eyes blazed with something that was almost anger but not quite that burning. It was something more like fear.  
  
"She left," Jubilee said miserably, her eyes still trained on the painting, her shoulders sagging as though there was a heavy weight settled on them. "A few hours ago while you were still unconscious."  
  
"No one tried t'stop her." Remy felt his hands clenching into fists at his sides and the statement, that should have been a question, fell flat and dull in the almost empty hallway.  
  
"No one *could* stop her," Jubilee replied, a vague pleading in her voice.  
  
Gambit's eyes swung to the young girl, the red irises blazing. "Dat ain' a good excuse."  
  
"It wasn't..." Jubilee started, trailing off when she realized that she was speaking only to the back Remy's retreating tan trench coat.  
  
******************************************************  
  
Remy slammed the front door of the mansion behind him. She was gone. And knowing Rogue as well as he did there was little chance that she was coming back any time soon.  
  
That was his fault.  
  
You didn't try to kiss a girl who couldn't even touch others without causing harm to them. Or at least he *shouldn't* have tried to.  
  
Gambit shut his eyes and leaned heavily against the closed door. *Ya done it this time,* he thought with a sigh. The question now, of course, was where would Rogue run off to.  
  
He didn't know anything about her family, and he doubted, from the conversations that they had in the past, that she spoke to them, so that was pretty much out of the question. But Remy wondered, he wondered very much, about whether or not Rogue would run to Mystique, her foster mother, now that things had gotten exceptionally rough.  
  
"Roguey, dan't ain't da place t'turn to," he muttered, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it up, breathing the smoke in. Gambit took another few drags on the cigarette before dropping it and smushing it under the heel of his boot.  
  
Time to make a few phone calls, pull some rank. Time to figure out where Rogue had run off to.  
  
  
*************************************************************  
  
It took a little extra work to find Mystique's latest hideout and a some persuading of Jean to help him with the task. But in the end, Gambit had a general idea of where he was heading.  
  
New Rochelle, New York, a fairly small town, close to New York City and heavily populated with students and cars. He took his motorcycle down there, the engine humming lightly as he wove in and out of traffic.  
  
There was a high school off to his right, the sloping green grass in front of the building cut in half by a pond. His lips pulled back into a grimace at the sight of teenagers milling around, yelling out to each other, dressed in name brand clothes and carrying colorful backpacks.  
  
Remy himself had never had a childhood like that. "Pity too," he muttered, ripping his red eyes away from the scene and slowing for a stop light. He studied a pizza place on one corner, set beside a Chinese restaurant, a series of apartments rising above both eateries.  
  
When the light turned green, he started forward again, passing a McDonalds, a Laundromat that had a sign proclaiming that you could surf the web while you washed your clothes in its window and a clothing store with a big strawberry on it's billboard. He turned on a corner decorated with the pink and orange Dunkin Donuts banner and eventually came to a stop in front of a pale blue painted house.  
  
"Nice, Mystique," Gambit said, kicking the motorcycle's stand into place so that it stayed upright. He walked towards the front door, smirking at the wreath of daisies that adorned the shiny, white door. "Amazing how domestic she can be when she want t'be."  
  
Remy leaned against the doorbell, hearing it ring shrilly inside the house.  
  
  
************************************************************  
  
Rogue looked up in surprise from where she was unpacking some clothing and depositing the jeans and tank tops into deep drawers. The doorbell was loud enough to startle her.   
  
She frowned and went back to her task. It wouldn't do any good to worry about who Mystique, her mother, was inviting over. She had chosen to align herself with Mystique and her brood once again and there was no going back. And Rogue didn't belong anywhere else but with the bad guys, the ones who caused harm.  
  
That was all her power did anyway. Hurt people, hurt the ones she loved most because they were the ones she wanted to touch most.  
  
Rogue felt her head droop, suddenly too heavy for her slender neck to hold up. Her shoulders hunched forward, as though she were trying to make herself as small as possible. Everything about this was like an intricately woven spider's web, each thread pulling on the others, knocking everything else out of alignment. With every move she made she drew herself further and further away from the X-Men, the people she had come to accept as a family.  
  
There was no going back now, even if she wanted to. Mystique would never let her get away, not this time. Going to find Mystique at all had been a knee jerk reaction.  
  
The blue skinned, red haired woman had been the first to let Rogue know that her mutant ability was, in fact, a powerfully usual one. Useful to who, Rogue had never asked until it was too late. But nonetheless, Mystique had made her feel as though she had worth, as though she counted as something more than a freak, someone who had to hang on the fringes of society, holding everyone at arms length.  
  
She held a blue T-shirt to her, her fingers knotting the thin fabric, the tears pushing their way out of her eyes. The lump in her throat was thickening and filling her entire throat, making it difficult to breathe.   
  
Rogue dropped to her knees, the shirt still twined in her hands, her hair falling around her face. She tore at the shirt, ripping it out of it's entanglement and let it drop to the floor before tugging at her gloves, throwing them hard against the wall where they hit the plaster with a slap.  
  
"Ah don' need this," she said quietly, coughing on the tears trapped in her lungs.  
  
Rogue hugged her arms around herself, drawing herself into a standing position and going over to the door, rubbing at her face to dry it before starting for the stairs to see who had stopped by for a 'visit.'  
  
The view from the top of the stairs revealed Mystique walking towards the door, her true form hidden by a clever shapeshifting trick that turned her normally flame red hair into a pale, honey yellow and her golden eyes into round, kind brown ones.  
  
Mystique's hands her hooked in her Jean pockets but Rogue knew from the set of the woman's shoulders that she hadn't been expecting anyone to stop by. And, even though her form showed that she was clearly tense, she hadn't called to Rogue for backup.  
  
Rogue felt a brief flash of motherly protection emanating from Mystique. Whatever else the red haired woman had done, she had always tried to protect her. Even now, after Rogue had just randomly shown up on Mystique's front door step without any explanation of even how she had found the little blue house, her foster mother was doing her best to protect her.  
  
But when Mystique opened the door, all thoughts of protection and motherhood left Rogue's mind in a rush. The ideas deflated from her mind in a whoosh and she squinted a little, trying to get a better look.  
  
Remy was propped up in the doorway, his arms hanging at his sides, almost as though he was completely comfortable, like this was just a social visit. But the tired, haggard look on his face reminded Rogue all to clearly of what had happened.  
  
She crouched down low, trying to hide herself behind the banister, her bare hand wrapping around the cool mahogany. If he just looked up, he'd see her. Hiding was useless, but it was a knee jerk reaction to try.  
  
Rogue could hear his voice, drifting upstairs, thick with a Cajun accent, speaking to Mystique with something like tired amusement lacing his voice.  
  
"Chere, I don' suppose ya seen a woman, about your height, brown hair, a white streak." Gambit's smile was almost chilling and there was something in the depths of his eyes that pulled at Rogue. Something that, while it made a flush creep up into her cheeks, also made her shiver.  
  
Mystique was already trying to close the door. "I think you have the wrong house," she said quietly, one hand firmly on the painted wood.  
  
"I don' t'ink I do, petite," Remy replied, sticking his foot in the door, holding it open. "I t'ink dis is da exact house I want t'be at." He pressed his own hand flat against the other side of the door and pushed it open with one swift movement.  
  
It was enough to knock Mystique off balance, enough of a surprise that she dropped the facade and reverted to her true form, red hair and all. Straightening herself, Mystique gave Gambit a stern faced glare, one that made her yellow eyes narrow, and one that Rogue remembered all to well from when she was a child.  
  
"Mr. LeBeau, where I come from, we don't just barge in uninvited."  
  
"I'm not gon' wait for an invitation from ya, Mystique. If I do t'at by da time I find Rogue it be too late."  
  
"What makes you think that she wants to be found." Mystique crossed her arms over her chest, having to back up a small step as Remy advanced on her. For all of her shapeshifting abilities, her own strength didn't compare to his.   
  
She waited until he was close enough that if he tried to move away he'd have to seriously check his balance before pulling a small silver pistol from the folds of her white skirt. "I don't go unprotected, LeBeau."  
  
"Neither do I, chere," Remy murmured, holding up a playing card that he had palmed, the queen of hearts glowing eerily with a red light. "Ya shoot, I drop dis card at your feet. Dodge dat."  
  
Mystique threw her head back and laughed. "I like your style, really," she said, taking a step back and lowering the gun. "We'll have to negotiate about getting to join the Brotherhood."  
  
"I don' associate wit' dat," Remy said, dropping his own weapon to his side. "I jus' want t'get Rogue an' bring her back home."  
  
"She doesn't want to go 'back home,'" Mystique said, her voice harsh. "Do you think she left just so you could come, gather her up, and bring her back. This is where she belongs. With me, with the Brotherhood, where her powers are actually being put to good use."  
  
"Exploiting her powers are puttin' dem t'good use?" Remy lifted an eyebrow. "She don' belong here. Her place is wit' da X-Men, wit'..."  
  
"With you?" Mystique's lips pulled back into a cruel smile. "Haven't you done enough to upset her? It's your fault that she ran away to begin with."  
  
Remy could feel his eyes flare even redder than they already were. "But it not gon' be my fault dat she stay here." He walked further into the house and glanced around, his eyes finally coming to rest on Rogue, huddled behind the stair railing.  
  
"Chere, come down here."  
  
Rogue looked up at him and shook her head slightly. "Ah don' think so..."  
  
"Chere..."  
  
"Ah can' go back t'the X-Men with ya, ah ain' an X-Man, not after this." Rogue clenched her hands into tight fists, turning her face away and standing, starting in the direction of the room Mystique had allotted her.  
  
She shut the door behind her, the wood clicking on wood sending a cold chill down her spine. Rogue leaned heavily against the closed door and shut her eyes, the tears still somehow escaping to slide down her cheeks.  
  
This was where she belonged.  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter One

Disclaimers: All Marvel characters belong to... well Marvel.   
  
*******************************************************  
  
  
  
It wasn't that hard after a while, Rogue reflected, her hands pressed to the wooden window frame, her nose flattened against the cool glass that fogged up slightly with her breath. It wasn't that hard at all.  
  
She sat back from the window, rocking gently on her heels. There was that meeting with Mystique, with the Brotherhood, the group that she had never felt completely comfortable with, that she needed to attend.  
  
Rogue turned away from the warped image that reflected faintly back at her from the glass. Seeing herself now, seeing herself any day, was almost more than she could bear. Because all she saw, all the vision revealed to her, was a traitor.  
  
She started down the stairs slowly, already knowing the scene that would greet her. The apple green, flower embossed couches, their material soft and silky. The wispy, white gauze curtains that billowed inwards whenever Mystique opened the windows to let in fresh air.  
  
It was all so... normal. So completely normal and here she was, as abnormal as they came. Rogue felt out of place in this cheery, homelike place with the fresh flowers adorning the cherry wood dining room table, with the wreath of pure white daisies that she knew hung from the front door. But this was her new home. The place where she... belonged?  
  
Rogue felt her lip twitch at the thought. The Brotherhood was where she belonged, among thieves, crooks, people with the moral aptitude of a cockroach.   
  
*Fabulous,* she thought, letting her hand trail the rest of the way down the banister. Rogue stared at the glove once she reached the bottom step. No dust. Of course there wouldn't be. On the surface this small house was as clean, as uncorrupted, as they came.  
  
But she had seen entirely too much of Mystique and her brood to believe that. She knew that beneath the snow white demeanor of her foster mother, there was a pit of black tar, hot and bubbling with hidden rage. And these meetings, the ones that Rogue was required to attend as a part of the Brotherhood, were nothing more than a farce. There was no doubt in her mind that the things that Mystique kept odd hours for, that had her hopping from country to country for days at a time, had nothing to do with these brief weekly meetings.  
  
Rogue was greeted at the bottom by a harried looking Mystique. "Where have you been," she demanded, her golden eyes flashing.  
  
Rogue lifted an eyebrow. "Upstairs, ah thought ya'd figure that out." She kept walking past the blue skinned woman to the study where the meetings were held.  
  
"Rogue."  
  
She paused in midstep, looking over one shoulder. Folding her arms over her chest, she lifted an eyebrow at Mystique. "We're goin' t'be late."  
  
"Forget about being late," Mystique snapped, her patience obviously about to shatter. "I got another letter from *Gambit.*" She spat the name out like it was something unsavory. "I thought we talked about this."  
  
"Ah can' make him stop writin'," Rogue said, throwing just the right amount of carelessness into her voice.   
  
"I thought you said that you stopped by there to hand in your resignation to the X-Men. And to tell him to stop bothering you," Mystique said through her teeth.  
  
"Ah did." What Rogue didn't reveal was that she had gone in the middle of the night, when she was fairly sure that everyone would be asleep, and had stood outside the mansion, just staring, watching it with careful, guarded eyes. And when she had seen the faint, red glow of the end of a cigarette through one of the dew damp windows, she had found her eyes irresistibly drawn to the image.  
  
That night, it had taken all of her strength not to run up the front steps of the institute, to throw open the door and rush up to the room that she knew connected to that window.  
  
But Rogue didn't. Not just because of her pride but because, deep down, she truly felt that she had no right to. Her place with the X-Men had become null the day she had walked out.  
  
"Sorry, sugah," she had whispered in the night, her breath fogging up in the air, blowing out like a rush of steam. "But ah ain' comin' back anytime soon. Maybe not ever."  
  
*Definitely not ever,* Rogue thought, turning her back to Mystique again as she started walking. *Not that ah'm lovin' mah life here, but it is a roof over mah head. An' at least...*  
  
A helpless, hopeless kind of smile pulled at her lips, the only kind that graced them these days. *At least ah don' hurt anyone here.*  
  
Rogue walked the rest of the way to the study, slipping her gloves off and draping them over the arm of a brown leather chair before sinking into it, her legs splayed out in front of her.   
  
Attending these meetings gloveless was a special kind of warning to the other members of this group. She didn't trust them, didn't believe that if they had the chance that they wouldn't, quite literally, stab her in the back.  
  
So ritually, every time she entered the study, she slipped off the now black gloves and flashed a brief, chilling smile around the room.  
  
X-Men these people were not. Trained killers, they were. Trained and *good* at what they did. Most of them were mutants, but a few weren't. They were just exceptionally skilled, something that put Rogue on edge even if she would never admit it openly to these assassins.  
  
Mystique followed her inside, going to the front of the room, a frown pulling at her lips. She was obviously not happy with Rogue's behavior.  
  
Rogue sighed and settled back into the plush chair, giving her foster mother a green, wide eyed look, one that clearly wanted to know why she was upset when she herself couldn't have *possibly* had anything to do with it.  
  
  
  
*****************************************************  
  
"Remy would you please come out of the room?" Jean Grey asked, her red eyebrows lifted in worry. "You can't carry on like this, it isn't healthy."  
  
"Neither are those packs of cigarettes that we know you've been sneakin' everyday, bub," Logan added, rapping at the door with a heavy hand, his voice low and gravely.  
  
"Der ain' nothin' ya could possibly have outside dat door dat would make me come out," Gambit replied from inside his room, pulling another cigarette out of its crinkly, cellophane package and lighting it up before taking a long drag of it, letting the smoke curlicue to the ceiling.  
  
"That isn't true," Jean replied under her breath just as Wolverine started speaking again, his voice angry.  
  
"I smell that," Logan snapped, hitting the door with a heavy fist. "Don't make me rip this poor excuse for a lock out of the door." His black eyes were narrowed, his shiny claws glinting menacingly in the florescent hallway lights.  
  
"You're not helping matters," Jean hissed, her gaze still on the door -- and what was beyond it. Secretly though, she was surprised that Logan hadn't resorted to ripping the door off its hinges yet. Surprised, but pleasantly so.  
  
But even with that new revelation, Jean knew, deep down, that nothing, short of Rogue standing outside the door, demanding that he come out, would get Remy to leave the sanctuary that his room provided.  
  
"We'll still be waiting," she called through to the Cajun, her eyebrows drawn together worriedly. "Whenever you're ready."  
  
Jean tilted her head to Logan, gesturing for him to follow her away from the door and down the hall.  
  
  
********************************************************  
  
  
"Dey jus' don' get it," Remy muttered, still staring out the window, flicking the ash from his cigarette every so often so that he wouldn't burn himself. His red on black eyes flickered downwards to the windowsill where a white envelope lay, the black ink that scrawled across it spiky and slanted. His own.  
  
The letters he sent Rogue, at the address that he knew she resided at, were never granted a reply. Instead, he could only imagine what happened to the neatly folded, white paper that he covered with pleas and propositions.  
  
Gambit had seen her once, only once, since the day at Mystique's quaint house in the middle of suburbia. And that had been in the middle of the night when she couldn't have known he was watching.   
  
Rogue had been standing out on the front lawn of the institute, a thick black cape pulled up over her head, only a few wisps of white hair escaping to blow in the slight wind. Remy had had to blink twice, not entirely convinced that this form, this angelic apparition, wasn't just a figment of his imagination.  
  
But when the figure looked up, obviously drawn by the red glow his cigarette made through the thin curtains, and he had known, without a doubt, that it was, indeed, Rogue standing outside.  
  
It must have been the eyes that convinced him. The large, round, green jewels that glimmered even in the dreary early hours after midnight had come and gone, when the dew, settled on the grass and leaves, sparkled like liquid diamonds but that, somehow, wasn't a match for those eyes.  
  
Remy had watched, smoking his cigarette, the tip flaring up with every breath he took in. He could have gone outside, swept her up in his arms and refused to let go. He could have *somehow* convinced her to stay.  
  
Only he couldn't.  
  
Something, something deep down, tugged at him, telling him to stay put, ordering him to let Rogue make her own decision. She had obviously not wanted to come back, he knew that, especially after that day at Mystique's house when she had deliberately turned her back on him before walking up to her room and shutting the door behind her.  
  
Respecting that decision had been the hardest thing he had ever had to do. The hardest but most necessary. But, even if he was going to let her go and join the Brotherhood while all of his senses screamed that Rogue was making the biggest mistake of her life, he wasn't going to do it without making her think about what she had left behind.  
  
"Dat be why I send da letters," he muttered, reaching down to pick up the clean, white envelope, the edges so perfectly kept that they hadn't been bent or tattered at all. He could only hope that, eventually, she'd realize.  
  
*Realize what?* his mind threw back, mocking and filled with self-loathing. *Realize just how good she have it here? Why? Because you here?*  
  
The thought was so preposterous that Gambit, who hadn't laughed or smiled since the day she had left, felt his lips helplessly tugging up at the sides.  
  
Remy dropped the envelope to the bed, letting the paper flutter gently before landing on the red comforter, then turned his eyes away, back towards the window. He ground his used cigarette into the ashtray that had kept a constant vigil at the window before lighting up another, leaning against the wooden frame and going back to his careful watching.  
  



End file.
